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Company by Thomas J. Hubschmanpublished in Volume 2, Issue 4 on July 27, 1995

Some people are hopeless. Jack and I have known each
other since we roomed together in college. I've been wining and
dining him and his various wives for the better part of two
decades. Never once did I suggest he was an irresponsible child,
a big baby who bolted from every serious relationship he's ever
been in. I even let him sleep on my sofa after each of his
marital fallings-out. I loaned him money (some of which he
actually paid back). I let him borrow my cars, which he ran into
the ground as if they were his own -- correction: as if they were
not his own. I put up with his tirades against
capitalism, organized religion, and anything else which he
imagined I held dear. I never forgot his kid's birthday or failed
to buy his current wife a Christmas present.

But no more.

We have him over two or three times a year. He lives in Park
Slope now. Jennie and I are still in the same brownstone we
bought in Cobble Hill when Jack lived over this way with his
first wife. Carol was a sweetheart, pure Marymount but without
the Mounty's sharp tongue or prissy manners. She doted on Jack,
actually supported him so he could paint his watercolors. He's a
good artist, though not as good as he likes to think. Until last
Saturday we hadn't seen him since the summer. We spent most of
August in New Hampshire at an old farm my partner owns. I offered
our brownstone for that time to Jack and his present mate, but he
declined -- said the "vibes" were wrong.

He always brings a bottle of wine to these get-togethers, the
same generic Bordeaux Rouge. I think he's trying to make a
statement: "I'm just an ordinary bloke, a man of the
people." I don't mind that he doesn't bring anything better
than vin ordinaire. I couldn't care less if he brought nothing at
all. In fact, I'd prefer it that way. It's not my fault
nobody buys his paintings.

I was standing at one of the big windows on the parlor floor
when I spotted him and Mona coming down the block, Jack in his
twenty-year-old raincoat, Mona in something off the rack from the
Salvation Army. The wine was tucked under his arm. They were
neither of them talking, and Jack looked especially glum. I
remember thinking, 'Uh, oh,' because since the baby arrived last
January, we don't have a room to spare. 'It's the YMCA for you
this time, my friend,' I said, turning my attention to the
Coopers' West Indian cleaning woman who was shooing a scrawny
stray from the garbage cans in the areaway. Which reminded me of
something that happened the week before. But I'll come to that
later.

"Something for the spirit," Jack said, handing me
the wine. I mouthed some words of gratitude, noting the $2.99
price tag. But subtlety is lost on that man. He beamed as if he
had just presented me with a '67 Chateauneuf du Pape. Then Mona
offered her cheek and I suggested that we have an aperitif in the
parlor.

We redecorated last spring. Rewired the entire house, had
plumbers and plasterers in, and finally restored the oak parquet
which was laid on original cherry planks at the turn of the
century. With the paint job, the work damn near cost a second
mortgage, but the house's value increased fifty percent. Not that
we're thinking of selling. Tanya's only in kindergarten, and
Bobby starts Trinity High School in the fall. We also bought a
new sofa and armchairs -- ordered the patterns directly from
Braunschweig. To fill up some of the white space on our new walls
we bought a couple oil paintings from a local artist I'd had my
eye on. One is a huge floral arrangement, slightly out of focus,
the other a beach scene. They each measure four foot square, but
you'd have to see our parlor walls to appreciate how well they
look.

I made the mistake of hoping Jack would approve. I should
have known better. It's not as if I don't have plenty of his own
pictures hanging about, although not in the parlor where they
would be lost in the sheer expanse of that mammoth plastering
job. He'd already seen the oils last summer when we had him and
Mona over for pesto and steaks in the yard. He wrinkled up his
nose at the still life before turning his attention to the beach
scene. For a moment I thought he actually might say something
positive. But he just grinned maliciously. "You can almost
feel the sand between your toes," he said, and asked if I
had any beer in the house.

He never even glanced at the pictures this time. He just
plopped down on the sofa and crossed the legs of the old
polyester slacks he wears for these occasions. He had on a pale
blue cashmere pullover -- Mona's Christmas present. He needed a
haircut but knows he's still good-looking enough that it doesn't
matter. Mona herself had on a dark sweater- and-skirt
combination. She's a few years older than Jack, but still quite
attractive -- lucky for her. I didn't like her at first, but
she's grown on me. I've even come to feel sorry for her. Jack was
a bit of a pill to live with twenty years ago. I don't imagine
he's gotten any better.

"Cinzano and soda?" I asked, feeling more than a
merely social need for a drink myself. Mona agreed, but Jack gave
me the amused look he puts on to make me feel as if I've just
made a fool of myself. "Budweiser for the gentleman?"

I went back downstairs for the drinks, leaving poor Jennie to
hold the fort. When I returned Jack was holding forth about
co-oping in the Slope -- greedy landlords and Yuppies who will
pay any rent and drive honest citizens like himself out of the
neighborhood. He hasn't forgot that I was a landlord myself until
my salary was such that I could make the mortgage payments
without renting out the top two floors.

"Why don't you try another part of the city?" I
suggested. "It's still possible to find a reasonable rent in
Greenpoint or . . . Long Island City."

He eyed me icily. He always brings out the tease in me. It
was Mona who broke the silence.

"No way," she said, most of her Cinzano gone.
"This is as far from Manhattan as I go."

"Greenpoint is actually closer to Wall Street than where
we live now," Jack told her.

"Makes no difference. I'm not moving anyplace other than
Manhattan. You can have the boroughs." Jack gave
her an even chillier version of the cold glare he had just shown
me. It's hard to gauge the state of a relationship from just a
few minutes conversation, but on the basis of what I'd seen of
Jack's previous matings, I gave this one another
six-months-to-a-year.

We headed back downstairs for dinner. Jennie had prepared
prawn cocktails, followed by filets minions bordelaises. I put
together the salad myself. We don't eat like that every night,
and I said so. But Jack's comment that this was the first decent
meal he'd had in weeks did nothing to improve the climate between
him and Mona.

"I made you lasagna just last week."

"So you did."

I offered them Italian bread that's still baked fresh every
hour at a shop on Henry Street. Mona glared angrily into her dish
of prawns, but now that he had successfully insulted her, Jack's
own temper was much improved.

"Did you tell Jack and Mona about the visitor we had
this week?" Jennie asked. She had been bouncing up and down
to see about the filets. I was grateful for the change of
subject, but I would not have raised this particular one on my
own.

"It was the oddest thing."

I went on to relate how I had heard the doorbell ring when I
was doing some touch-up work in the kids' bathroom on the third
floor. A moment later Tanya came bounding up the stairs and said
there was a "dark man" at the door. I thought
immediately of the plasterer who still had work to finish on the
basement level, and cursed under my breath because we were
expecting company that evening.

But it wasn't the plasterer. It wasn't anyone I had ever seen
before.

"Yes?" I said through the glass door. The young man
-- he looked to be in his middle twenties, "dark" all
right, but not negroid -- was smiling broadly. He was dressed in
jeans and a flak jacket. It was a damp, chilly day, but he didn't
look especially cold. "Yes?" I said again, having no
intention at that point of opening the door; there had been a
number of break-ins in the neighborhood recently. But he kept on
smiling and pointed a long brown finger at his chest, then at me,
as if there were no chance of his being heard through the glass.
By this time I had him figured for a salesman or, worse,
Jehovah's Witness. We could have gone on with our charade
indefinitely, so I decided to open the door. It was the middle of
the afternoon, and I figured I outweighed him by twenty pounds.

"I would never open my door to a
stranger," Mona put in. "I don't even open it for Jack
unless I can see him plainly through the peephole."

"Which you rarely can."

"I'm nearsighted," she replied. "If you
were nearsighted you'd understand."

I fumbled with the key -- we rarely receive visitors on the
parlor level -- until I finally succeeded in worrying it through
the ancient lock. The man never hesitated. He was into the
vestibule even before the door was fully open. I positioned
myself between him and the inside entrance. "Yes?" I
said again, this time with authority.

"Hi," he replied, offering his hand and an even
brighter version of his big smile. His teeth were whiter than
Tanya's piano keys. His eyes were black. "My name's Alonzo.
I'm homeless. I've been asking folks in the neighborhood if they
can help me out with some canned goods or leftovers they might
have in their fridge. I used to have an apartment on Court
Street, but the landlord evicted everyone so he could renovate
for condos. I've been out of work for more than a year since I
injured my back. I'd appreciate any help you can give."

I like to think I'm no fool when it comes to spotting a con
man. But it was only afterward that I realized I should have
asked what he would do with canned goods if he was homeless, not
to mention how he was surviving with just that cotton jacket to
keep him warm. I guess I was hypnotized by his big grin. Even so,
my mind was working overtime calculating how far I was from the
nearest weapon (the poker in the parlor fireplace would do),
whether it was likely he had a knife or gun concealed under his
jacket, and if Tanya was still up on the third floor or, more
likely, was hovering just behind me, her thumb in her mouth.

Of course, I left out these deliberations in the story I told
Jack and Mona. As I said before, if Jennie hadn't raised the
subject I would not have brought it up on my own. I knew Jack
would try to turn the incident into some kind of joke at my
expense.

I told Tanya to run downstairs and tell her mother we had
company. Half a minute later Jennie appeared, in her usual
dither, but hardly expecting to find this dark stranger in her
parlor.

"This is Alonzo," I said. Even before I could
finish the introduction, he was pumping my wife's hand and
treating her to his hundred-watt smile. "He's a homeless
person," I added, and sure enough, Jennie looked as if I had
said he was an Egyptian mummy. But Alonzo's grin never flagged.
"He stopped by to ask if we had any extra food we could
spare."

"No, ma'am," he corrected, "I am
homeless. I'm collecting for myself." And then he gave her
the same smooth rap he had laid on me when I first opened the
door.

I figured this game had gone on long enough, so I told my
wife to see if we couldn't spare something from the pantry.
"Aren't there also cold cuts in the fridge?" I called
after her as she was hastening back to the stairwell. She
hesitated, showing a look that made me want to burst out laughing
despite my own apprehensions -- I still didn't know what Alonzo's
real game was, and by this time he was ensconced in my parlor,
having a look at the beach scene.

"Would you like to . . . sit down?" I asked,
indicating a wooden rocker that wouldn't be offended by his
weathered denim. But he favored our new Braunschweig sofa. He
fingered the lush pattern critically.

"Very nice."

"How long have you lived in the area?" I asked.
"I mean, before you were evicted."

He spotted the still life and got up to have a closer look.
When he replied, it was in the manner of someone who had more
important things on his mind. "Two, three years."

"You're not sure?"

He completed his appraisal of the still-life. "What
difference does it make?" he said, his grin gone stale
around the edges. Then, perhaps realizing how I, his benefactor,
might take his offhanded tone, he added, "I mean, what does time
matter? It's all karma anyway." He sat down again, this time
in the rocker, and looked as if he had no intention of going
anywhere else for the rest of the day. "You like it
here?"

I replied that we liked it well enough, but I was wondering
what was taking Jennie so long to throw a few cans into a paper
bag.

"I don't come from these parts originally," he
said. "You can probably tell by my accent."

Actually, I hadn't noticed he had any accent at all -- a sure
sign, I then realized, that he was not a native New Yorker.
"Where do you hail from?" I asked.

His dark eyes -- they had become oddly bright -- fixed on me
as if for the first time. "I already told you," he
said, "I'm homeless."

Just then Jennie appeared, staggering under the weight of two
full shopping bags. I never asked our visitor to clarify his
response, and he didn't seem inclined to pursue the subject. I
gave him something short of the bum's rush to the door, but he
made a point of putting down his shopping bags on the top of the
stoop and shaking hands in full view of the neighbors.

"My God!" Mona said when I finished the
story. "He could have been an ax-murderer!"

"I doubt that," I replied, sipping some pinot noir.
The steaks had been first-class. "He was too skinny to have
something as bulky as an ax concealed on his person."

"Even so . . ."

"More likely he was putting you on," Jack said,
helping himself to the scalloped potatoes.

"Putting me on how?"

"Goofing on you, man. Conning you."

"Oh, I don't think he was," Jennie said, shocked as
always at any suggestion of mendacity. "Do you,
honey?"

I made a reach for the creamed cauliflower and shrugged.
"The thought crossed my mind. But what difference does it
make? If he actually needed food, then we did a good deed. If he
didn't, what did we lose -- a few cans of tuna?"

I spoke offhandedly but was expressing a conclusion that had
taken me the better part of a week to come to. I had felt very
foolish indeed when I still thought the entire episode might have
been an elaborate joke.

"Of course, he may also have been casing the
place," Jack said.

But I was tired of the subject. I turned toward my wife, who
had become very quiet, and suggested that we have coffee up in
the parlor.

After we were settled again on the sofas, Tanya came down for
her goodnight kiss. Mona immediately lost her preoccupied look
and opened her arms wide to the child. Jack watched with
ill-concealed disdain. Mona had no children of her own, although
her first marriage had lasted fifteen years. Jack had a son
living in Connecticut, a nice boy a couple years older than my
Robert. As I watched Mona fuss over Tanya I realized that she
probably wanted nothing more from life than a child of her own. Fat
chance, I thought, keeping one eye on Jack, who preferred
even the beach scene to that of his woman showing affection to
another human being.

After Tanya had headed upstairs for the night, Jack asked,
"How much did you pay for them?" nodding toward the
still-life.

"Actually, we got a good deal. The artist was relocating
and wanted to travel as light as possible. We probably paid less
than half what they're actually worth." I had no intention
of giving him a dollar amount. No price would have seemed right
to someone who hadn't sold any of his own work since last year's
Promenade exhibit. Besides, I liked the paintings.

I brought out a bottle of kirsch to wash down the coffee, put
some evensong on the stereo, and as we all sat sipping, a rosy
glow seemed to permeate the room, a sense of good fellowship,
however slightly out of focus, like my still- life. I reached for
Jennie's hand, thinking how lucky I was to have a loving wife and
family, good health, and, yes, an old friend like Jack, however
trying he could be.

Then through a haze of ecclesiastical reverberation I heard,
"Of course, the same fate could happen to any one of us
here. The way things are going, we could find our asses out on
the street just like Alonzo."

"What are you talking about?"

"You don't believe there's a 'safety net' that catches
us if a real calamity strikes? Suppose you fell ill or lost your
job because of -- I don't know," he gestured with our
Swedish crystal "-- professional misconduct. It isn't only
doctors who get sued for malpractice, you know. Or, take my own
case. Where would I be if Mona lost her job and couldn't find
another?"

My mood was ruined. I suspected that whatever ideas I had
been putting into Jennie's mind for later were also in jeopardy.

"What are you talking about? Even if we did lose my
income temporarily, Jennie could take up the slack. Just as you
could," I added, no longer concerned about stepping on his
delicate ego.

"Suppose you both got ill at the same time? Suppose one,
or even both of you, were in a serious accident? It happens, you
know."

"Yes, of course it happens. And when it does people fall
back on their savings, or their insurance, or in the last resort
on their families."

"Your brother lives in New Mexico. Would you be willing
to relocate to New Mexico?"

"If I had to, certainly," I said, feeling my wife's
fingers tightening on my own. "My God, Jack, you have this
maudlin imagination that always thinks the worst. I mean the
preposterous!"

"It's not so preposterous. There are thousands of people
on the streets of this city who would have also thought the idea
'preposterous' if you told them a couple years ago they would be
sleeping on subway gratings. What about your Alonzo? Didn't you
say he had a good job before he lost his apartment?"

"He was obviously lying. You said yourself he was a con
man."

"Then, why did you give him food?"

Mona let out a big sigh and looked at her watch. When she
did, the animosity I had been feeling toward her mate suddenly
included her as well.

"Well, I did and I didn't. Giving him what he asked for
just seemed the easiest way to get him out of our hair.
Look," I said to Jack, "what are we arguing about
anyway?"

"Who's arguing? You just got taken, man, pure and
simple. You feel foolish, but you don't want to admit it. It's a
human reaction."

"Thank you very much, but I don't think I need you to
tell me what's human."

Jennie pinched my arm as if I were a sleepwalker heading
toward an open window.

"Actually," Jack went on, "you're right.
People like you don't have anything to worry about. It's
only poor bastards like Alonzo who end up on the street. You'll
weather any kind of calamity, and your kids will go to Ivy League
colleges. That's what the American Dream is all about. Your own
father was a laborer who broke his ass so you could become a
professional. You send your kids to private schools instead of
those retarded parochial schools we had to go to. Your kids meet
the right people and become high-powered business types. You
don't imagine they'll settle for being lawyers or doctors, do
you? Hell, the professions are for the children of Jews and
immigrants."

Never mind that he had already done a 180-degree turn about
Alonzo. Never mind that we were both drunk enough to be able to
claim afterward that anything we said should not be held against
us. In vino veritas, I say. The next thing I knew I was
on my feet, heading for the same parlor entrance which hadn't
been opened since I let Alonzo in.

"Here's your coats."

"Gerald!" Jennie cried in protest.

Jack accepted his ragged raincoat with a sour grin. We were
both swaying from the kirsch, but I had already decided that if
he tried to throw a punch I would hit him right back.

He did nothing of the kind. He put on his coat, then helped
Mona into hers with more solicitude than he had shown her all
evening. She looked too terrified to speak, but just as I was
about see them out the door she turned toward me, looking as if I
might hit her, and asked if she could please use the
bathroom.

Suddenly I felt like an ogre.

"Of course," I replied. "And I'll call you a
cab."

"No need," Jack said. "We'll take the
bus."

There was an uncomfortable minute while we waited for Mona.
Jennie asked nervously about Jack's son and the boy's mother.
Jennie and she had been rather close for a while, but after Carol
and Jack separated she avoided us for some reason. I still felt
bad about how I had just acted, but there was not the slightest
trace of anger on Jack's handsome face.

Mona joined us again, wearing a fresh application of
lipstick. I was sorry for the scare I had given her. "Come
see us again soon," I said, leaning toward her freshly
powdered cheek. But she averted her face, leaving my kiss hanging
in midair. Neither of them said good night -- not even to Jennie,
who was close to tears.

"Goodbye and good riddance," I said as I watched
them walk down the block, Jack's arm through Mona's to keep her
from tripping on the flagstones.

I haven't heard from Jack since and I have no intention of
calling. Jennie's asked if she should go ahead with the plans we
had for a surprise party to celebrate his fortieth birthday.